A Brit’s View: Stupidity Meets Idiocy in Failed Bomb Plot

What do you get when you cross one form of stupidity with another form of idiocy? In Britain the answer is a failed makeshift terrorist attack. The foiled bombing was due to happen last summer. The court case is going on this week. The details are quite bizarre.

Now I don’t want to dumb down the serious nature of a terrorist plot in the UK, so I’ll let the would-be bombers do the work for me. The six men on trial in London, all of whom have pleaded guilty to preparing an act of terrorism, are British Muslims, under 30 and from the West Midlands. Their target last June wasn’t a church or a shopping mall or an airport, it was a ‘political’ rally. To be more precise, it was an EDL rally. EDL officially stands for English Defence League, although unofficially it stands for We Hate Muslims (or Muslamics as oneÃ‚Â supporter put it so eloquently).

To be as polite as possible, unlike fellow right wing organization the British National Party, which concerns itself with anybody not white, the EDL is only concerned with Muslims. So when the group arranged a rally in the Yorkshire town of Dewsbury, due to a substantial minority of the town’s population being Muslims, six men fromÃ‚Â the West MidlandsÃ‚Â decided a bomb in the middle of it all would settle a few scores.

Unfortunately for them they proved to be as stupid as their targets, because by the time they’d driven the 112 miles to Dewsbury, the rally had finished due to the EDL’s lack of speakers (they aren’t exactly big-time). So the would-beÃ‚Â bombers turned around and set off back to Birmingham with their nail bomb, sawn-off shotguns and knives. With only one ofÃ‚Â the groupÃ‚Â on a terrorist watch-list, they were in the clear, until one of the cars they were travelling in was pulled over by police and impounded over a lack of motor insurance. A later search of the car uncovered the weapons, which led to a manhunt, arrests, a court date, and will eventually end in prison.

No doubt the stupidity and idiocy won’t end here, as both sides are equally capable of both.Ã‚Â But at least the potential bombers pleaded guilty, saving everyone from having to hear about the EDL and Muslim extremism for the next few weeks.